Soldier’s Family Seeks Answers After Ft. Leonard Wood Death

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – The parents of a military officer want more answers after their son died at Ft. Leonard Wood in southern Missouri two weeks ago.

“This hurts. It doesn’t make sense,” Gregory Coble tells KMOX News.

Coble last spoke to his son, 2nd Lt. Steven Coble, on September 8, two days before the 25-year-old’s body was found unresponsive in his bed in his officer quarters.

The next day, two officers came to Gregory Coble’s Southfield, Michigan home early in the morning. His wife called him home from work.

“When I saw them in my living room when I got home fifteen minutes later, I knew and I just broke down,” he says.

Coble says his son was perfectly healthy and happy when he went to the fort for a one-week course on creating a terrorism plan at the military police school.

“He had just graduated with his master’s in architecture from Hampton University. He was just commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant,” Coble said. “This was in May. He was just beginning.”

Gregory Coble tells KMOX News there isn’t a history of cardiovascular disease in his family and his son didn’t use drugs. The family is awaiting the result of toxicology tests, hoping to better understand why their son is gone.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command from Quantico, Virginia is investigating Coble’s death and the death two weeks earlier of a 49-year-old drill sergeant found unresponsive in a barrack’s bathroom.

Command spokesman Chris Grey says they do not suspect foul play in either case but it has not been ruled out.

Gregory Coble has requested a copy of his son’s autopsy.

“To bury your son – your young, healthy son – is the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to go through in my life and nothing else comes close,” he said.